AmEricAn SociEtY for YAd VASHEm

Vol. 47-No. 1 ISSN 0892-1571 September/October 2020-Tishri/Cheshvan 5781 HolocAuSt EducAtion during cHAllEnging timES: dEtErminAtion to PrEVAil year ago, our projections about our not changed despite the multiple obstacles of want to highlight the best of humanity when the educational outreach were a very dif- pivoting to Zoom and remote format. We still face worst was there. By restoring a human face to ferent conversation. We spoke about the same challenges: relevance of the Holo- the victim, we can underscore the resilience of A our continued progress in expanding caust; shrinking population of Holocaust sur- the Jewish people and their ultimate survival. our work regionally and nationally through a va- vivors; a future without Holocaust survivors; time We continue to consider what was lost and riety of events, venues and resources developed how survived. The courage and resilience by Yad Vashem’s International School for Holo- of Jews during must be acknowl- caust Studies. We continued to underscore the edged and promoted. This is also critical to ad- importance of enriching and encouraging Holo- dress the rising tides of anti-Semitism and the caust education and the presence and mission efforts of Holocaust deniers to muffle these im- of Yad Vashem in this process. portant messages and facts. As we are all well aware, these past few e have the additional obligation months, owing to the complicated circumstances of transmitting the lessons from and challenges we face with COVID-19, with this event to present and future school closures, the absence of face-to-face in- W generations with a directive to teraction, anxiety about this deadly virus, and un- educators in all educational settings. In Teacher certainty about the future in terms of a cure, we and Child (1972), Dr. Haim Ginott, child psychol- have had to rethink and recalibrate many as- ogist and author, requests the following from pects of our work that until now did not surface. teachers. His request is timely and relevant for Today, we collectively navigate uncharted waters Holocaust educators today: to sustain our joint mission of Holocaust remem- Dear Teacher, brance through education. I am a survivor of a concentration camp. In the course of identifying opportunities to My eyes saw what no man should witness: reach a broader audience, we have successfully Gas chambers built by learned engineers, pivoted to remote format and, thankfully, can Children poisoned by educated continue our work during these unprecedented physicians, times. The fluidity of adapting also provides a Infants killed by trained nurses, glimpse into many learning and networking op- Women and babies shot and burned portunities previously not considered. We can by high school and college graduates. now connect with educators across the nation to Artifacts from a Holocaust survivor family. These artifacts So, I am suspicious of education. broaden our reach and empower more teachers were used before the Holocaust, hidden during the Holocaust, My request is: Help your students become to share our mission of Holocaust remembrance and proudly used continuously during lives rebuilt. human. Your efforts must never produce with ease thanks to the variety of remote plat- constraints on educators for required subjects in learned monsters, skilled psychopaths, edu- forms available. their curricula; challenges of Holocaust denial; cated Eichmanns. Reading, writing, arith- While these connections existed in the past, and rising tides of anti-Semitism — just to name metic are important only if they serve to make pivoting to remote format has proven to be ben- a few. our children more humane. eficial for both the host and the participant. Ease More importantly, the issues remain the same Collectively, we will honor this request. of access through Zoom allows educators to par- and are increasingly important. The resources We remain optimistic about sustaining our ed- ticipate in programs and seminars across the are still available, but also in additional for- ucational responsibility to this important subject, globe, providing them with a more comprehen- mats — live and remote. despite the many challenges we face, with simul- sive palette of professional development oppor- In times of unprecedented challenges due to taneous learning platforms that we implement tunities. It is not enough simply to possess the the pandemic, we continue to carry the torch of (Continued on page 2) knowledge. We need to keep in mind what is remembrance through education and convey to done with the knowledge and how it is dissemi- the world the survival, resilience and strength of American Society for Yad Vashem nated to be meaningful and relevant. Sustaining the Jews before, during and after the Holocaust. will hold a series of virtual events teacher training and professional development is It is through education and the educational ped- essential. agogy developed by Yad Vashem that we sustain this fall and winter. It is important to recognize that there are this mission and transmit the lessons of the Holo- many aspects of Holocaust education that have caust to present and future generations. We See page 9 for details Page 2 mArtYrdom & rESiStAncE September/october 2020 - tishri/cheshvan 5781 roSH HASHAnAHS of tHE HolocAuSt rEcAllEd bY YAd VASHEm ach year, Yad Vashem opens an on- designed by a talented Dutch Jewish architect, 1942, the Jews of Assen, including Heintje line exhibition of Holocaust-era arti- Abraham van Oosten, for the synagogue in and her daughters, Gonda and Johanna, were facts related to Rosh Hashanah and Assen, in the northeastern , where rounded up and deported to the Westerbork EYom Kippur, with stories drawn from he and his family lived. transit camp. its archives. n Westerbork, Gonda married Asher This year the stories range from the heart- Gerlich, a Zionist pioneer. In 1944, the breaking to the redemptive. Jewish News is high- couple was deported to the Bergen lighting two, both of which relate to the I Belsen concentration camp. Gonda’s Netherlands. mother, Heintje, and younger sister, Johanna, Simon Dasberg and his wife Isabella lived in were sent to Auschwitz, where they were mur- Groningen, in the Netherlands, where Simon dered. served as the community rabbi. They had four Gonda, the sole survivor of the van Oosten children — Fanny (Zipporah), Dina, Samuel and family, changed her first name to Tamar and Rafael. in 1946, together with Asher, emigrated to Is- In 1943, the Dasbergs were deported to rael. The couple, now Tamar and Asher Ben Westerbork and from there to the “star camp” in Gera, joined a group of young Palmach pio- Bergen-Belsen. Rabbi Dasberg took a sefer neers and established kibbutz Beit Keshet in Torah with him, which briefly allowed him to read the lower Galilee. They had seven children. from it for services and even guide bar mitzvah Most of the Jews of Assen did not survive boys in the camp. the Holocaust. A few returned, but they were In preparation for Rosh Hashanah 5705 (Sep- not able to reestablish a Jewish community, tember 1944), the Dasberg children made and the synagogue was never reopened. The “Shana Tova” cards in Bergen-Belsen. building was eventually purchased by the local They drew the symbols of the holiday — the Protestant community and converted into a shofar and the apple dipped in honey — deco- church. rated the cards with bright colors, and wished In 1974, Tamar learned that the former their parents a better year than the one they had Assen synagogue was to be demolished. She just lived through. decided to save the stained-glass windows Rafael, the youngest, aged eight, wrote (in her father had designed, and bring them to Is- Dutch): “This year I will be a very good boy, and rael. For a time they were installed in the ren- I will never cry.” ovated dining hall of kibbutz Beit Keshet; but But that year Rabbi Dasberg, his wife Is- as it became clear that the dining hall was no abella, and Rafael were murdered in the camp. longer the central meeting place of the kib- The three elder children survived and emi- High Holy Day symbols on a shul window in Assen, Holland. butz, Tamar asked Yad Vashem for help in grated to Israel after liberation. The Rosh The windows were completed and installed in preserving the windows for posterity. Hashanah cards were brought to Yad Vashem by 1932. Five years later, van Oosten died, aged Today the van Oosten windows are part of the eldest, Fanny Stahl, nee Dasberg, and pho- only 40. His widow, Heintje, and their three chil- Yad Vashem’s Artifacts Collection, a memorial tographed for the archives. dren, Gonda, Leo and Johanna, remained in the to a Jewish community which no longer exists, In contrast to the sadness of the Dasberg town. but which celebrates the work of Abraham van cards, Yad Vashem also features the story of the In 1940, the Germans occupied Holland. Leo Oosten and the High Holy Days. Van Oosten stained-glass windows. van Oosten was arrested and deported to The High Holy Days–themed windows were Auschwitz, where he was murdered. In October BY JENNI FRAZER, Jewish News HolocAuSt EducAtion during cHAllEnging timES.... (Continued from page 1) outreach in addition to our “live” programs. While nation against Jews of all walks of life, was not a to navigate these difficult times. We keep in mind our complete calendar will be ready in our next new concept in 1933. It was widespread and our commitment to effectively commemorate the issue of Martyrdom and Resistance, we are prevalent in many countries. The Nazi regime am- Holocaust and sustain its relevancy through alter- pleased to share with you the date for our upcom- plified and manipulated the latent prejudices of its native learning platforms, despite the challenges ing 2021 Arfa Professional development con- citizens. It did not create these prejudices. these new arenas present. We look forward to ference on Holocaust Education set for march Teaching about the Holocaust and commem- sharing our robust array of programs, events and 7, 2021. Details will follow in our next issue and on orating this event is ultimately a tribute to the vic- opportunities for the 2020–2021 academic year. our website (www.yadvashemusa.org). tims and a responsibility incumbent upon By way of example, we are pleased to offer We must continue to ask ourselves — why is generations following the Holocaust. We want to you an opportunity to bring the museum to your it important to remember the Holocaust? How ensure that kind of event will never repeat itself. classrooms, using artifacts to teach about docu- can we ensure that future generations do not for- Had this awareness existed some 75 years ago, mentation, primary sources, tradition, resilience get the Holocaust? What advocacy do we owe the name Auschwitz today would simply repre- and Holocaust denial. Each item in the photo- to Holocaust survivors? What lessons can we sent another city on the map of Europe. graph (see page 1) attests to the resilience and teach and learn from to ensure that manifest and Together we will move forward and bring the perseverance of one family who went through latent forms of anti-Semitism are identified, and same determination, commitment and respect the war, survived and prevailed. Our workshop addressed before they develop and escalate to for this subject, that we have in the past while on Survivors and Survival brings these mes- dangerous proportions? sharing the opportunities and possibilities in in- sages to the classroom. As educators we are well aware that the Holo- novative learning that will benefit us during these Through our programs, we are sustaining and caust is not simply a contemporary issue. It challenging times. expanding professional development initiatives na- stretches back past the parameters of the modern tionwide. We are developing and implementing re- era — into the Middle Ages and beyond to the in- BY MARlENE W. YAhAloM, PhD mote learning and social media platforms for ception of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism, discrimi- Director of Education at ASYV September/october 2020 - tishri/cheshvan 5781 mArtYrdom & rESiStAncE Page 3

Radom, , in 1923, Sally was forced to live in the town’s large ghetto until it was liquidated. mAY tHEir mEmoriES Her father was shipped to Auschwitz, where he was quickly murdered, while Sally, her mother, and two young sisters were sent to the small forEVEr ghetto, where they performed slave labor. There they bE A blESSing moved in with the family of Sally’s fu- e are all aware that Holocaust celerated because of the 2020 pandemic. ture husband, survivors are among the most Back in March, Israel’s first coronavirus fa- Henry. But they vulnerable to the coronavirus tality was Aryeh Even, a Holocaust survivor. were all shipped to W and that we have lost so many Born in Budapest, Aryeh, together with his Auschwitz, and precious souls to this invisible foe over the past mother and brother, was forcibly evicted from Sally was the only six months. Each and every one of these sur- the family’s home after Germany invaded Hun- member of her vivors has a name gary in 1944. The family was able to find refuge family to come out and a story. They sur- in one of the Swiss protected homes in Bu- alive. Sally and vived the horrors of dapest. Under the auspices of the Swedish em- Henry had prom- the Holocaust and bassy, they moved to different shelters under ised to look after persevered after suf- the cover of night. Aryeh immigrated in 1949 to each other if they fering unimaginable Israel where he built a family and worked as a somehow survived. tragedy. Now, with the civil servant. After the war, Sally spread of COVID-19, abbi Romi Cohn, a 91-year-old went into a Czech Romi Cohn in Budapest, 1944. our beloved survivors Holocaust survivor living in Staten orphanage and are facing a new Island, also passed away from the planned to go with the other girls who were being threat. 75 years after Rcoronavirus in late March. Romi was transported to London. Henry, who had been the end of the war, born in 1929 in Pressburg (now Bratislava), crisscrossing Europe, found Sally the evening just 400,000 survivors Czechoslovakia. During the war, he worked with before she was scheduled to leave for England. are still alive, with the resistance and helped rescue 56 Jewish These stories represent just a few of so many about 189,500 of families. Less than two months before his survivors we have lost because of COVID-19. them living in Israel. death, Rabbi Cohn delivered the opening May each and every one of their memories for- In the New York area, prayer in the U.S. House of Representatives for ever be a blessing. As we enter the new year, let Aryeh Even. there are an esti- the 75th anniversary of the liberation of us reflect on the lives lost and remember to cher- mated 36,000 survivors. In 2019 alone, more Auschwitz. ish the survivors still with us. than 15,000 survivors passed away. Tragically, Sally Horn (née Frajlich) passed away in April, the passing of the survivor generation has ac- two days before her 97th birthday. Born in BY JIll GolTZER bErnESE grouP triEd to SAVE tHouSAndS of JEwS in HolocAuSt New research suggests that Polish diplo- tributed to the rescue of between 2,000 and used by Jews in occupied Poland, the Nether- mats who worked during World War II to res- 3,000 people,” he said. lands and to some extent Germany, according cue Jews from Nazi-occupied Europe The Bernese Group is alternatively known as to Monika Maniewska, a Pilecki Institute attempted to save several thousand Jews the Ładoś Group, named after then–Polish am- archivist and co-author of The Ładoś list study. through their efforts. bassador to Aleksander Ładoś, who ccording to the study, the Polish he so-called Bernese Group of six served in Switzerland from 1940 to 1945 and government-in-exile gave its full Polish diplomats working out of the oversaw the effort to forge passports. support to the operation, pressuring Swiss capital, , sought to pro- Thousands more Jews are believed to have A Latin American states to recognize T vide Jews in Poland with forged benefited from the forgery efforts, although their the forged documents for humanitarian reasons. South American passports, mostly from names remain undocumented, Kumoch said. The initiative ended in 1943 when the Swiss Paraguay. The passport holders in some cases According to Efraim Zuroff, a Holocaust his- authorities became suspicious and demanded were allowed to live outside the Jewish ghettos torian and director of the Simon Wiesenthal that it be shut down. or were sent to internment camps instead of Center in Israel, the initiative to provide Polish The list of Jews who were saved by the Ładoś Nazi death camps. Jews with fake South American passports came Group includes several fighters of the 1943 War- Until recently, it was thought that the group largely from Juliusz Kühl, a Polish Jewish diplo- saw ghetto uprising, including Zivia Lubetkin and helped save several hundred Jews. But re- mat in Bern; Chaim Yisroel Eiss of the Agudat Yitzchak Zuckerman, and leaders of the Jewish re- search conducted by the -based Pilecki Yisrael organization, who lived in Zurich; and sistance from Slovakia, France and . Institute, the Jewish Historical Institute of War- . Among the thousands of survivors were Mir- saw, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum Bern-based Polish diplomat Konstanty Ro- jam Finkelstein, mother of British politician and and the Polish Institute of National Remem- kicki was responsible for obtaining the blank associate editor of The Times Lord Daniel brance suggests that the Bernese Group pro- South American passports and filling them out, Finkelstein; and the best friend of Anne Frank, duced thousands of forged passports that may while Ładoś and Polish diplomat Stefan Hannah “Hanneli” Goslar. have helped save 2,000 to 3,000 Jews. Ryniewicz gave the scheme diplomatic cover. The English version of The Ładoś list was According to Polish Ambassador to Switzer- Silberschein and Eiss dealt with smuggling presented under the patronage of the World land , the editor of the study, be- the passports into Nazi-occupied Poland and Jewish Congress on February 27 at the Hebrew tween 26% and 46% of the 3,253 Jews who into the ghettos. Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in received the Polish-forged documents survived The Ładoś Group assisted Jews from all over New York City. the Holocaust. Europe, though the majority of the passports “We estimate that the Ładoś Group con- identified and documented in the research were BY JEREMY ShARoN, The Jerusalem Post Page 4 mArtYrdom & rESiStAncE September/october 2020 - tishri/cheshvan 5781 liVing liVES frEE of PErSEcution ver the past six months, our Young upon the pledge “Never Again,” and that does did dialogue on the troubling anti-Israel and anti- Leadership Associates (YLA) have not just refer to the Shoah; it refers to all violent Zionist sentiments floating around many of the been working hard to keep the com- persecution of any group or people based sim- social justice causes that are highly visible in Omunity engaged in Holocaust edu- ply on their religion, race or ethnicity. Yad today’s media. He specifically addressed the cation and remembrance, all from the safety of Vashem is dedicated to educating the world question of how to navigate this tension and their own homes. From virtual book club meet- about the devastating consequences of unbri- show support for these causes while remaining ings to film screenings, the YLA has been finding dled hatred. When it comes to being stripped of uncompromised in our dedication to Israel. ways to stay connected. But more than that, this one’s humanity, the Jewish community certainly Furthermore, Rev. DeGraff emphasized the group has served as a resource and outlet for has the capacity to empathize with those who importance of simple acts of kindness. He re- our young leaders during a time of great social are struggling with injustice. minded us that no matter how small a single act upheaval and discontent. Following our discussion, Mr. Miller kindly put may feel, it can make a world of difference for In June, following the tragic murder of us in touch with the Reverend Jacques DeGraff. one person. Anyone and everyone can have an George Floyd and the ensuing unrest, YLA Rev. DeGraff is an active member of numerous impact. In other words, our actions should be members met with Michael Miller, ASYV board social justice organizations and serves as co- about direct interpersonal relationships between member and executive vice president and CEO chair of the New York State Office of the Attorney individuals and communities. We want to forge of JCRC-NY, to hear an overview of how the General’s Black and Jewish Clergy Roundtable. bonds out of genuine empathy and our desire to Jewish community was responding the situa- He is also the recipient of the State of Israel’s understand. Ultimately, we share a common goal tion. They wanted to know what we, not only as Martin Luther King Jr. Award for lifetime contri- of living lives free of persecution, all while hon- a Jewish community, but more specifically as a butions in the struggle for social justice. The Rev- oring our unique heritage and histories. Holocaust remembrance community, can do to erend kindly met with a number of our YLA board support the black community. We were founded members and engaged in a very open and can- BY JIll GolTZER tHE tHird rEicH’S SuPPortErS in tHE unitEd StAtES Hitler’s American Friends: The Third Reich’s For example, there is Hart’s chapter on the the New York area were particularly imbued Supporters in the United States. American senators who helped spread Nazi with anti-Semitism and Nazi influence.” Which By Bradley W. Hart. St. Martin’s Press: New propaganda in the United States. Among the universities does Hart point a finger at, specif- York, N.Y., 2018. 296 pp. $17.69 hardcover. “more than two dozen US senators and repre- ically in New York? Columbia and New York n recent years, an increasing amount of re- sentatives” who did so were Senator Ernest Lun- University. Outside of New York, he notes Yale search has focused on the state of America deen of Minnesota, Senator Burton K. Wheeler University, the “birthplace of ‘America First,’” just prior to and during the Holocaust. The of Montana and Senator Rush Holt of West Vir- and UCLA, a “hotbed of pro-German senti- Iresult has been the publication of numer- ginia. The “mastermind” paid by the German em- ment.” ous books and articles telling a history few know, bassy to make this happen was George hen there is the chapter on Nazi spies but many should: the anti-Semitism very much a Sylvester Viereck, referred to by a New York in America, in which we discover that part of American society in the 1930s and 1940s, tabloid as “Hitler’s No. 1 Benedict Arnold.” according to “intelligence historian revealed in the workings of Among other things, he was T Ladislas Farago . . . by the late 1930s anti-Semitic organizations the ghostwriter for parts if not there were around fifty spies operating in the and a variety of “leaders” de- all of the speeches some of United States” — some even working in the de- termined that America follow these politicians gave, be- fense industry! Doubtless, because of them, in Nazism’s footsteps. Thus cause of his “contacts” he saw blueprints of the “sophisticated Norden bomb- we’ve learned about the Ger- to it that certain “information” sight,” an instrument that made it possible to man American Bund and its was placed in the Congres- drop bombs with greater precision, ended up in megalomaniac leader, Fritz sional Record, and he figured Germany, utilized by Hitler’s . Still, more Julius Kuhn, a fanatic “Hit- out how to use politician’s terrifying than all the rest — and much more dan- lerist.” We’ve learned about franking privileges in order to gerous had it come to fruition — was Germany’s The Silver Legion and its do mass propaganda mailings Operation Pastorius, “a scheme to take the war “Chief,” the “eccentric mystic,” free of charge to Americans directly to the United States through a series of William Dudley Pelley, an- — all of it “to build American violent terrorist attacks on dams, power stations, other Hitler admirer who fol- support for and manufacturing facilities, train stations, and lowed “spiritual sources.” above all else, keep the bridges.” Thankfully, Operation Pastorius and We’ve read about the “Amer- United States out of Hitler’s many other German intrigues came to naught ica First Committee” of the war in Europe.” thanks to the dedicated work of “local law en- 1940s and its “popularity” (or Another chapter full of forcement and the FBI,” under the ever-watchful more like infamy), the result lesser-known information is eyes of J. Edgar Hoover. of Charles Lindbergh’s inflam- about student and university In summary, importantly, hitler’s American matory speeches, born of his propaganda activity vis-à-vis Friends answers a lot of questions many have. mistaken views of Hitler and Germany. We’ve Nazism in America. Here Hart notes how Amer- Just one of those questions: Why didn’t Amer- learned about Father Charles E. Coughlin and ican students in study-abroad programs in Ger- ican Jews do more for their coreligionists suf- the violence of his Christian Front, and more. In many, even after “the anti-Semitic and violent fering in Europe? Sadly, the answer, clearly Bradley W. Hart’s conscientious compilation en- nature of Nazism was clear,” came back cor- delivered in Hart’s work, is: fear, fear that what titled hitler’s American Friends: The Third rupted by the indoctrination they experienced was happening in Europe could happen in Reich’s Supporters in the United States, we read in “Nazified” universities — only to corrupt oth- America. additional fascinating details about all of the ers. Additionally, he writes about how “pro-Ger- above noted; however, of even greater interest man voices were consistently given public REVIEWED BY DR. DIANE CYPKIN to the reader, we learn of Hitler’s American platforms on American college campuses.” Professor of Media, Communication friends yet to be fully “recognized”! Moreover, we read that “universities based in and Visual Arts at Pace University September/october 2020 - tishri/cheshvan 5781 mArtYrdom & rESiStAncE Page 5 nAzi HuntEr tEAmS uP witH litHuAniAn JournAliSt to inVEStigAtE HolocAuSt crimES or anyone seeking to understand why have been implicated — directly or indirectly — ical presence. Vanagaite arrived with decades of the Nazi crimes of the 1940s are still a in the murder of Lithuanian Jews and the seizure reporting experience, a hunger for knowledge source of controversy throughout post- of their property. She wanted to know more and an easy manner with the elderly intervie- FCommunist Eastern Europe, our Peo- about this largely unwritten chapter of her coun- wees. Together, they plucked the hitherto silent ple: Discovering lithuania’s hidden holocaust is try’s past and started to organize Jewish-themed witnesses from the obscurity of their village lives. a shocking book — and essential reading. events and visits to the places where these un- Many had never spoken before of the horrific Part road trip, part “buddy film” and part true- spoken horrors occurred. crimes they had stumbled into as frightened chil- crime expose, our People follows veteran Nazi Looking for guest speakers to spice up a dren. hunter Efraim Zuroff and renowned Lithuanian Holocaust history discussion in Vilnius, she was Standing on the doorsteps of village homes, in journalist Ruta Vanagaite on a journey through warned not to invite Zuroff, who was said to be a the forest clearings where the massacres had the haunted house of Lithuania’s past. bully and anti-Lithuanian provocateur, most likely been carried out, and in the streets of small coun- Co-authored by the duo, the book caused a in the pay of the country’s nemesis, Vladimir try towns, this odd couple of Holocaust chroniclers national sensation when it was first published in Putin. She was told he was aggressive and breathed new life into long-forgotten memories of made schoolteachers cry. events so shocking that the force of their retelling She decided to meet him, after decades of silence, overlaid with guilt and if only to see if he could be pain, seemed to change the very air. persuaded not to spark a “I never expected I would find any witnesses. fistfight at the event. I never expected they would talk,” Vanagaite For his part, Zuroff says. agreed to have coffee with gAtHEring tHE StoriES Vanagaite but with zero expectations. Zuroff, ever n Svemcionys, a town where 8,000 Jews skeptical, wondered aloud once lived, they saw an old woman leaving whether Vanagaite’s sud- a grocery store who seemed about the right den interest in her coun- Iage. Her story tumbled out. She and her try’s Jewish past was sister were very close to two Jewish sisters, the motivated by the availabil- Bentski girls, aged 7 and 15. In October 1941, ity of generous European when nearly 4,000 Jews were rounded up to be Union funding. But it was shot dead at a local military base on Yom Kippur, Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff, right, and Lithuanian journalist Ruta Vanagaite in Jerusalem the tireless Nazi hunter the woman’s parents discussed whether they in this undated photo. and ruiner of reputations could adopt her friend and take her in. They de- Lithuania in 2016. It became a bestseller, divid- who was taken by surprise. cided it would be too risky. ing families and sparking an establishment back- “No,” she replied. “I am doing it because I dis- “When they were marched by us, my mother lash so intense that the publishers withdrew all covered that some of my relatives had most and I cried because we couldn’t save the little of Vanagaite’s books from sale, and she felt so likely taken part in the Holocaust. And I feel that girl,” the old woman told her visitors. threatened she fled the country. The book was in remembering and honoring the Jews mur- “You probably were very afraid of the Ger- published in English in March. dered, I will to some extent make amends for mans?” asked Efraim. It will come as a shock to many to learn that their crime.” “No, we could have hidden her forever,” the the Holocaust in Lithuania — home to 220,000 Her response rendered Zuroff speechless. old woman replied. “We were afraid of our neigh- Jews before the Nazi occupation, of whom per- “She was the first person I had ever met in bors.” haps five percent survived — is indeed “hidden.” Lithuania who admitted a thing like this,” he says. “She started crying,” Efraim says. “It broke my heart. It was obvious she had never told the story The beautiful countryside is invisibly scarred by An unlikElY roAd triP dozens of pits, some of them unmarked, where to anybody. She was walking around with this on thousands of Jews were slaughtered, dumped, anagaite began wondering what it her heart since 1941, more than 70 years, and covered with lime and rubble and left to rot. would be like to travel with Zuroff to she finally was able to tell someone. I think it was Lithuania’s earth is soiled with the blood and the sites of the mass murders and try a relief for her, but it was heartbreaking, ab- stench of mass murder perpetrated in large part Vto find the last living eyewitnesses to solutely heartbreaking.” by Lithuanian citizens, many of whom have the terrible events that had taken place there in As in so many of the mass murders of Jews never been identified, let alone arrested and the 1940s. Zuroff was thinking along similar and others throughout the country, the Special prosecuted for their terrible crimes. lines. Now that he had finally found a well- Unit squad in Svemcionys in October 1941 was Zuroff, the Nazi hunter, had been trying to known, eloquent Lithuanian who admitted her made up largely of Lithuanians. Many of them bring Lithuanian Holocaust criminals to justice for family’s role in the Holocaust, perhaps her peo- escaped prosecution. years. The great-uncle for whom he was named, ple would listen. There were only about 800 Jews in Butri- Efraim Zar, lived in Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital, “I thought maybe if the message comes from monys in September 1941, when the local police where he was seized and killed in 1941. an ethnic Lithuanian, Ruta Vanagaite, not Jew- chief ordered them rounded up in the local pri- “There’s no question in my mind that trials ish, no connection — maybe this will finally con- mary school so they could be killed the following have a much stronger impact than history vince them of the truth and the accuracy of the day. The murders were planned to be carried out books,” Zuroff says. But the Lithuanians, flush real narrative of the Holocaust,” Zuroff says. by the Third Platoon of the TDA, the National from their liberation from Soviet rule, were in no They were perfectly matched for the task at Labor Defense Battalion, born from the insur- mood to spoil the celebration of their newfound hand. Zuroff carried in his head the details of the gents who had battled the Soviets as they re- independence by arresting elderly citizens. terrible events they were trying to uncover, but treated from Lithuania in 1941. Zuroff had never met Vanagaite until she dis- he would always be an outsider, a foreign Jew The Third Platoon were busy murdering the covered that her grandfather and her uncle may with an American accent and an imposing phys- (Continued on page 7) Page 6 mArtYrdom & rESiStAncE September/october 2020 - tishri/cheshvan 5781

AftEr 76 YEArS, VictimS of nAzi mASSAcrE idEntifiEd tHrougH dnA tESting

hen David Reicher was three ing the Holocaust. the identification,” says Esposito. months old, his father left the After the war, the Fosse Ardeatine — a Recently, science and technology have house and never came back. group of unused ancient quarries located near helped identify another victim of the Fosse W Now, after 76 years, Reicher, an the Via Ardeatina — were transformed into a Ardeatine massacre. Heinz-Erich Tuchmann Israeli citizen born in Italy in 1943, has finally shrine and national monument. was a Jew from Magdebourg, Germany, who learned his father’s fate. Reicher’s family had gone to great lengths moved to Yugoslavia in 1930 for business and Marian Reicher, a Polish Jew, was among the to find out what happened to Marian. His wife’s then to Italy. In this case, too, DNA played a 335 civilians murdered in the Fosse Ardeatine cousin took a genealogy course and searched crucial role. Tuchmann’s nephew, Jeremy massacre on March 24, 1944. The indiscriminate online, as well as in the archives of the Italian Tuckman, who currently lives in England, pro- mass killings, which targeted Jews and Gentiles Red Cross and the International Tracing Serv- vided a biological sample for comparison. of all ages, from all professions and socioeco- ice in Bad Arolsen, Germany. The family ac- n the late 1940s, Tuckman’s father Fred- nomic groups, were carried out by the Nazis as quired other documents from Yad Vashem. erick heard that his brother had been a reprisal for a partisan bomb attack on an SS “My father was deported to a field near Bas- killed in the Fosse Ardeatine massacre, regiment the day before which killed 33 SS po- sano del Grappa in on January Ibut the DNA test that could corroborate lice. 20, 1944,” Reicher said. “The Santa Croce de- that information hadn’t been invented yet. Marian was among the eight victims of the tention camp was mentioned in another docu- Recently, Italian researcher Michela massacre that until recently had still not been ment dating back to November 1944. My name Mecocci traced Tuchmann, who was on the list identified. But in April of this year, Reicher re- appears on that list ceived a phone call from Alessandro Veltri, the next to the names of army general in charge of the General Commis- my mother and my sis- sariat for Honors to the Fallen, an agency serv- ter Rosetta, but there ing directly under the Defense Minister. Reicher’s is no reference to my DNA, it was revealed, matched that of one of the father.” unidentified victims buried in the Fosse Ardeatine Reicher had be- quarries, where the group had been shot point- lieved his father was blank, execution-style, to save ammunition. killed in the Fosse Finally knowing what happened to his father Ardeatine massacre, was a great relief for Reicher. but he hadn’t been “It was a very happy day for me,” Reicher told sure.The DNA test The Times of Israel. “I’m sorry that my mother confirmed his suspi- and sister, who died years ago, could not know cions. my father’s fate.” Marian Reicher The identification was made thanks to the was born in 1901 in the forensic investigations unit of the mil- town of Kolomyia, itary police. In 2009, the unit archived biological which was then Poland data from the unidentified victims’ remains to be but is now located in later compared with samples from surviving fam- modern-day . David Reicher with his wife, Rebecca, June 2020. ily members. He became a dentist and married Ethel Lachs. of victims yet to be officially identified, back to “It’s very important for Holocaust survivors to The two fled to Italy during World War II. his living relatives while she was making a doc- know what happened to their relatives,” said Re- “My parents arrived at the Enego camp near umentary on the massacre. Mecocci gave the icher. “Maybe some of them may still be alive, Vicenza on November 25, 1941,” Reicher said. General Commissariat the results of her re- [and] every year on the day of a deceased rela- “My sister was born on January 8, 1942, in search and put the officials in contact with tive’s death, Jews light a candle in their memory. Bassano del Grappa. My mother was very Tuckman. “Not knowing the date of my father’s death, I young when she became a widow with two chil- “I wasn’t sure that my uncle was one of the used to light a candle on Holocaust Remem- dren to take care of. It was a trauma, she never victims of the massacre,” says Tuckman. “I was brance Day. Now I know the exact date when I wanted to talk about it.” very happy to receive this news, which repre- can honor him,” said Reicher. In 1945 the surviving family moved to Israel, sents the confirmation of what my father was For their massacre, the Nazis first selected settling in Tel Aviv. Reicher got married, had looking for all his life. Identification through Italian prisoners already slated for execution. three children, and now has eight grandchil- DNA testing has brought our family peace, hap- When that wasn’t enough — they had decided dren and three great-grandchildren. piness and relief for the conclusion of the on 10 reprisal murders for each SS man killed — Reicher recently contacted the Mausoleum quest. My uncle found dignity and recognition they expanded their criteria to include others im- of the Fosse Ardeatine and spoke with Colonel in death.” prisoned for long sentences or serious crimes. Roberto Esposito, an officer of the General When pandemic-related restrictions permit They finally filled the quota by adding Jews in Commissariat for Honors to the Fallen. it, a public ceremony will be held, and attended Nazi custody who were waiting to be deported “Some documents place Marian Reicher in by Reicher, Tuckman, their relatives and Italian from Italy by way of the Fossoli concentration during the massacre period. We asked Defense Minister Lorenzo Guerini. camp near Modena. In all, 76 Jews were killed; David to send us a swab with his DNA to com- it was the largest massacre of Jews in Italy dur- pare it with victims’ DNA, and so we came to BY GIoVANNI VIGNA, The Times of Israel September/october 2020 - tishri/cheshvan 5781 mArtYrdom & rESiStAncE Page 7 nAzi HuntEr tEAmS uP witH litHuAniAn JournAliSt to inVEStigAtE HolocAuSt crimES (Continued from page 5) ever wear any of these clothes?” she asks. criminals compiled by the Association of Lithuan- Jews of Alytus, another town nearby. They hur- Vanagaite’s doubts about her uncle hover over ian Jews in Israel, whittling it down to 2,055, then ried over. The Jews were stripped naked in the thousands more Lithuanian officials, including deleting it altogether from its publications. town square and marched off to a clearing in the some of the country’s national heroes, lauded, as “Part of society thinks they were perpetrators nearby Klidzionys Forest. he was, for leading the insurgency against the So- and part of society thinks they are heroes. Both “The pits in the forest had already been dug; viet occupiers as they fled before the Nazi inva- are true,” Vanagaite says. “Noreika didn’t shoot everyone knew they would shoot the Jews, and sion in 1941. Bitterness against the Soviet anybody himself. But the question is: Did he were waiting for it to happen,” Antanas Kmieli- occupation framed Lithuanians’ sense of gratitude know that signing the orders for the ghettoization auskas, one of Lithuania’s most famous artists, to the Nazis for liberating them from Stalin. When of the Jews and redistributing Jewish property nine years old at the time of the massacre, told the Nazis began rounding up the Jews as the was ultimately part of the process of sending interviewers from the US Holocaust Memorial price of their occupation, many Lithuanians went people to their death? Museum in 1998. along. Decades later, the sufferings of the Jews “We don’t know what was happening in his Kmieliauskas and his friends hid behind a appeared to pale in comparison to the many years head. Hitler didn’t shoot anybody personally. For house and watched as the Jews were led, of Soviet tyranny. Lithuanians it’s much safer to think that if they naked, in groups of 10, to the edge of the pit and “The Nazis were there for a very short time, a didn’t shoot, they are innocent, especially if they shot dead. very long time ago, and they actually didn’t do were fighting the Soviets after the Holocaust,” “After those shootings I had she says. nightmares. About pits. Perhaps mYtH of “doublE gEnocidE” all the children had nightmares,” he said. uroff says the attitude to the Holocaust Before visiting the town, of the modern Lithuanian state, and Vanagaite called on the artist, most of its citizens, is so warped by then 83, to see if there were any ZSoviet oppression that it has created a more details he remembered. myth of “double genocide” in which the crimes of After the shootings, the chil- the Nazis and the Soviets are equated. dren neared the scene to find Even more dangerous, he says, are the ef- “some people in the pit were still forts of Lithuania and other former Eastern Bloc alive,” he recalled. One badly states to try and export this double genocide wounded man was trying to doctrine to official Holocaust memorials and ed- breathe through the blood block- ucation in the rest of Europe. ing his nose. “The killers did not “The Soviets were in Lithuania much longer and the Nazis were there relatively briefly, but if want to waste the bullets on the shown in what is today called Klaipeda, Lithuania, in March 1939. victim, so one of them went to a country has a choice between being a country the forest to get a stone.” anything so bad for Lithuanians,” says Vanagaite. of perpetrators or a country of victims, it’s a no- Kmieliauskas sketched the scene that had “Of course we had to give our products to the brainer. Of course they want to be a country of haunted him for so long and gave Vanagaite the army, but there was no crime that people would victims,” Zuroff says. “I do not want to in any way drawings, but after telling her the final piece of remember. And the Jews were not our people.” minimize Communist crimes against the peoples the story, the artist was worried. “Lithuanians don’t equate them. The Soviets of Eastern Europe, but the double genocide the- “Please, Ruta, don’t say that these people were much worse. They were attacking us and ory is very dangerous. It’s undermining. It’ll even- spoke Lithuanian. Don’t tell the story in the the Nazis were attacking the Jews,” she says. tually change when people understand the truth. book,” he pleaded. “I love my country. I know it Vanagaite’s grandfather was a national hero, “But they also deserve to have their victims and you know it. Let’s not say it in public. Let’s Jonas Vanagas, a political prisoner convicted of remembered and to get compensation from the not shit in our own nest.” anti-Soviet activities, who died six months after he Russians,” he says. “Part of the problem is that the Russians’ hands are not clean. They didn’t too cloSE for comfort was sent to a gulag in 1945 for helping to drive out the Soviet invaders in 1941. There is no evi- do anything to make up for it. They didn’t admit he same reluctance to air this dirtiest dence to suggest that Vanagas was implicated in their guilt, they didn’t compensate the victims, of laundry in public also haunted Vana- crimes against the Jews, but records show that they didn’t express regret for all the horrible gaite’s family. Ruta Vanagaite never Balys Simke, arrested and imprisoned with Vana- things that the Soviet Union did — and it was T met her aunt’s husband, Antanas. gaite’s grandfather, helped force-march the Jews horrible, absolutely horrible.” They emigrated after the war to the US, from through Ukmerge to the prison where they were Vanagaite says she understands the reluc- where he sent her jeans and other prized Western shot in September 1941 by the Rollkommando tance of Lithuanians to confront their complex contraband while Lithuania was part of the Soviet hamann, a special unit made up of eight to 10 past, but hopes that their book has started to bloc. It was only after he died that she realized he Germans and 80 Lithuanians who carried out thaw long-held convictions, especially as the had been the police chief in Ponevezh, home of mass killings across the Lithuanian countryside. people involved fade into history. the famous yeshiva, where more than 8,000 Jews Even more controversial are the prominent “Losing your hero or losing your image of the were massacred by late August 1941. She still nationalist leaders with blood on their hands, like past or the history of your country is losing part doesn’t know if he played any part in carrying out Jonas Noreika, a key figure in the Lithuanian re- of yourself,” she says. “All the people who are the Nazi orders to murder the town’s Jews and sistance to the Soviet occupation after World sensitive about the fathers and grandfathers — steal their property, which was distributed among War II, who was implicated in Holocaust crimes. my generation — are dying away. So the ice will the rest of the population, including household The Genocide and Resistance Research Center melt. Unfortunately, I don’t think it will melt in my goods and clothing. of Lithuania, funded by the government, officially lifetime.” “I am wondering whether my grandmother re- exonerated Noreika. The center also disputed a ceived anything? Did my mother, who was 14, list of 23,000 suspected Lithuanian Holocaust BY MATThEW KAlMAN, The Times of Israel Page 8 mArtYrdom & rESiStAncE September/october 2020 - tishri/cheshvan 5781

Singing wHAt You couldn’t SAY to tHE nAziS S ow did the Jews of Terezin concentra- ising young Czech pianist and conductor who was selection” of Jews who would be deported to tion camp perform Verdi’s Requiem deported to Terezin concentration camp in 1941. Auschwitz from the camp. In September 1943, this Mass? how did the hungry, sick and While there, he formed a choral group of fellow pris- selection process wiped out nearly all 150 members h dying Jews of Terezin manage to learn oners and organized musical performances. Ulti- of the choir. Schächter being so dedicated to the Verdi’s Requiem in the midst of such horrid condi- mately, he came up with the idea of training 150 mission of conducting his choir and the meaning be- tions? how did the Jews of Terezin summon the concentration camp singers to perform Verdi’s Re- hind Verdi’s Mass, he forced himself to start over strength to perform this difficult Requiem Mass not quiem Mass. with an all-new group of singers. once or twice but fully 16 times? And how did the Murry Sidlin, a current professor of conducting at In one notorious incident in June 1944, the Ger- Jews of Terezin deliver their final performance — on the Catholic University of America, was in disbelief mans invited the International Red Cross to inspect June 23, 1944 — for an audience of Nazi captors when he learned the story of what Schächter had the Terezin camp, which they retrofitted and dressed and members of the International Red Cross? done. Sidlin says, “I have conducted the Requiem up for the occasion. This was despite the fact that just More than seven decades later, answers still all over the world. There are passages that are days before, and after the choir had sung the Verdi elude us, and the scope and bravery of these Jew- treacherously difficult. It is a significant achievement ish heroes surpass any explanation. But you defi- even in optimum conditions — where the singers nitely feel their notes, their abilities and their are experienced, well rested and healthy. The Re- achievements vibrating through the screen. And you quiem demands all your concentration and energy. are moved to participate in this astonishing, amaz- To come to rehearsals after a cup of gruel and a day ing documentary film called Defiant Requiem: Verdi of slave labor — I don’t know how they did it.” at Terezin, a concert-drama narrated by Bebe Terezin was a ghetto and transit camp in Ger- Neuwirth. man-occupied Czechoslovakia. It usually housed around 60,000 inmates, most of whom would be de- ported to extermination camps such as Treblinka and Auschwitz. Of the more than 150,000 Jews sent to Terezin, only about 17,000 survived the war. Terezin also became a transit hub for Jewish in- tellectual titans of politics, music and academia. A vibrant subcultural scene flourished at the camp amid the desperation, disease and death. Wikipedia tell us that lectures, concerts and plays were per- formed late into the evenings, all done in secret, within the Terezin barracks. n the spring of 1943, Schächter formed and led the camp’s choir, “choosing to teach his choral students Verdi’s Requiem.” The Verdi IMass music was taught and learned by all 150 prisoners by rote, note by note from a single score Still from the film Defiant Requiem. sheet, smuggled into the camp originally by Schächter. After weeks and weeks of hard labor dur- Mass, the Nazis had dispatched many of the same ing the day along with constant starvation every choir members and thousands of other inmates off to evening, these dedicated singers tackled Verdi’s the Auschwitz concentration camp. most demanding choral composition. What was witnessed at the Terezin concentration Rafael Schächter. Marianka May, a Terezin survivor, said, “At one camp provides not only a public documentation and Obviously, there are endless touching, painful rehearsal, Schächter made an announcement. He accounting of how the Nazis wanted to deceive the and tear-jerking stories of inconceivable horrors and said, ‘I have a dream to put on some very special world regarding the treatment of the Jews in their cap- heroics in every aspect of the gruesome actualities music by Verdi, that has never been sung in such a tivity. The archived footage and survivor accounts in of the Holocaust. Defiant Requiem shares one of place as this before.’” the film prove this point. these amazing stories. The film, directed by Doug Several singers who survived the camp recall in The modern Verdi Requiem concert was per- Shultz, is anchored by two amazing concerts, both the documentary those late-night practice sessions; formed in December 2010, when conductor Murry of Verdi’s Requiem Mass. “how Schächter’s demand for excellence and the Sidlin realized his long-held dream of bringing the The Messa da Requiem is a musical setting of music itself made the unbearable days in the camp choral masterpiece back to Terezin for a fitting ac- the Catholic funeral mass (Requiem) for four more tolerable.” knowledgement, tribute and reenactment of soloists, double choir and orchestra by Giuseppe Schächter told his choir that “we would sing to Schächter’s original choral concert. Verdi. It was composed in memory of Alessandro the Nazis what we couldn’t say to them,” according The film documentary Defiant Requiem chroni- Manzoni, an Italian poet and novelist whom Verdi to May, “The Latin words of the Requiem reminded cles these two choral concert events through the admired. According to Wikipedia, the work was at them that there is an ultimate judge, and one day use of archived photos, animation, accounts and one time referred to as the Manzoni Requiem. they (the Nazis) will all answer to that judge.” descriptions from survivors, and the historical back- The original concert took place in the spring of It was no easy task for Schächter to keep the ground of the Terezin concentration camp in 1944, led by conductor Raphael Schächter, a prom- choir going; every day the Nazis would make “a new Czechoslovakia. The film brings to light the many September/october 2020 - tishri/cheshvan 5781 mArtYrdom & rESiStAncE Page 9

efforts of the prisoners who were trying to defy their Nazi captors. Singing the Verdi’s Requiem while uti- lizing the present orchestra and choir confirmed just how motivated the Terezin prisoners were to relay their defiant story behind Schächter’s choral work. May reflected, “Being in the choir gave us the wonderful ability to think about the next rehearsal, the next performance — it reminded us that we come from a normal world. It was soul-saving. I sur- vived the war and I still have my soul.” chächter’s choir gave 16 performances between September 1943 and June 1944. On October 17, 1944, a transport Stook almost the entire choir, including Schächter, to Auschwitz. Ms. Fantlova, another selection” of Jews who would be deported to Terezin choir survivor, sat opposite Schächter on Auschwitz from the camp. In September 1943, this the way to Auschwitz. “There were about 130 of us selection process wiped out nearly all 150 members locked in the same truck,” she says. “The doors of the choir. Schächter being so dedicated to the were bolted, there was no air. The journey took mission of conducting his choir and the meaning be- three days, and no one knew where we were going.” hind Verdi’s Mass, he forced himself to start over She recalls Schächter pulling a tin of sardines from his sock and asking her to mix it up. “This will In one notorious incident in June 1944, the Ger- be my last supper,” he told her. “I thought he was mans invited the International Red Cross to inspect being a bit of a pessimist,” says Ms. Fantlova. “After camp, which they retrofitted and dressed all, we didn’t know what was going to happen — it up for the occasion. This was despite the fact that just might not be so bad.” days before, and after the choir had sung the Verdi Unfortunately, Schächter perished on a death march in the spring of 1945 — only one month before the libera- tion of Czechoslovakia. For the choirs of Terezin, singing the “Re- quiem” was an act of moral resist- ance. The condemned sang in defiance of their captors and the fate that awaited them. “We re- hearsed without sufficient food, clothing or sleep,” says Ms. May. “But those in the choir had a rea- son to sing the music and to stay alive.” Eventually Sidlin teamed up with director Doug Shultz to film the memorial 2010 concert in Terezin with a renowned group of international singers and musi- cians. The film uses elegantly ani- mated sequences to evoke the horrific world of Terezin without relying on grisly newsreel footage. The interviews are well filmed, and the concert se- Mass, the Nazis had dispatched many of the same quences build genuine intensity. The film pays a choir members and thousands of other inmates off to moving tribute to Schächter, a forgotten figure who failed to survive the war but embodied absolute concentration courage and undeniable commitment to defy his camp provides not only a public documentation and Nazi captors that will continue to inspire for gener- accounting of how the Nazis wanted to deceive the ations to come. world regarding the treatment of the Jews in their cap- The sheer force of so many musicians delivering For further information about NY events, please contact tivity. The archived footage and survivor accounts in Verdi’s Mass in the basement of today’s Terezin emo- tionally engulfs the listener, as it was intended to do. Rachelle Grossman, Event Manager concert was per- But add to this powerful music the imagery: the formed in December 2010, when conductor Murry sight of Terezin survivors on screen watching the [email protected] | 212-220-4304 ext. 206 Sidlin realized his long-held dream of bringing the 2010 concert and recalling what it was like to perform for a fitting ac- Verdi Requiem is simply nothing but inspiring. knowledgement, tribute and reenactment of Survivors didn’t know if they would live to see an- For further information about Seattle or LA events, other day, yet believed in the power of music as a please contact Zohar Nir, Event Coordinator chroni- means of survival. cles these two choral concert events through the It’s a proud statement of faith in the face of gross [email protected] | 424-273-4460 ext.2 use of archived photos, animation, accounts and atrocities and a profound remembrance of those descriptions from survivors, and the historical back- who were murdered just for being Jewish. concentration camp in www.yadvashemusa.org Czechoslovakia. The film brings to light the many BY JEFFERY GIESENER, San Diego Jewish World Page 10 mArtYrdom & rESiStAncE September/october 2020 - tishri/cheshvan 5781 from PAlEStinE to JAil in mAuritiuS n December 5, 1940, 1,580 Jewish those aboard the Atlantic were particularly dire. internment of all “enemy aliens” in the UK, includ- men, women and children were The boat trailed behind the Milos and Pacific by ing German and Austrian Jewish refugees (al- taken from the Atlit detention center two weeks; when it ran out of coal, parts of the though the process of releasing those, including Onear haifa, transferred onto two actual ship were burned in order to fuel its jour- Jews, who were not considered a danger was ships, and deported to the island of Mauritius in ney. Some passengers died aboard the boat and underway by this point). the Indian Ocean. their bodies thrown overboard. The role of the Nazis in the refugees’ story is On their arrival in the small British colony 17 “A grEAt dEAl of troublE” still shrouded in mystery. The three ships were days later, the refugees — who had fled Nazi-oc- chartered in September 1940 by the Central Of- cupied Europe three months prior — were taken or did arrival in Palestine bring relief. fice for Jewish Emigration under its head, to the Beau Bassin central prison, where they The refugees had sung “Hatikva,” Is- Berthold Storfer. Storfer, an Austrian Jewish fin- were held behind bars for nearly five years. rael’s future national anthem, as they ancier, is a controversial figure who worked The deportation was the first and only occa- Nfinally caught sight of Mount Carmel, closely with Adolf Eichmann and has been ac- sion during the war on which Jewish refugees but their reception was a cold one. cused of walking “a thin line between assistance who had reached the coastline of Palestine were “They were received not only by the British and collaboration.” (He was later murdered at forcibly removed from the country. The decision authorities but by the Jewish Yishuv authorities Auschwitz.) of the British Mandate au- “We know that the Nazis were involved, and thorities reflected both a we know that if they weren’t, the departure of the determination to deter ille- Jews wouldn’t have been possible at that point,” gal immigration to Pales- argues Mikel-Arieli. tine and a fear that Nazi The attitude of the British authorities toward spies might lurk among the refugees affected that of the Yishuv, or Jew- the ranks of the refugees. ish establishment in Mandatory Palestine. It did At the same, however, the not want to break British law by encouraging il- Haganah, the paramilitary legal immigration nor to be considered as in any organization representing way collaborating with the Nazis. “For the Yishuv, the Jews in Mandatory it was a headache,” Mikel-Arieli believes. Palestine, was equally re- cHurcHill’S rESErVAtionS solved to prevent the de- portation — a desire which he British government was, however, was to have tragic and not entirely at one in its approach, bloody consequences. and there was an undercurrent of dis- As the 75th anniversary quiet. The prime minister, Winston A sewing workshop in the men's section in the Beau Bassin prison, Mauritius. T of their release was re- Churchill, attempted to soften Lloyd’s orders that cently marked in a virtual commemoration event, with indifference and cynicism. This comes the refugees be held behind barbed wire, warn- the refugees’ largely forgotten story is being across very strongly in the refugees’ testimony,” ing him: “We cannot have a British Dachau.” pieced together by Israeli academic Dr. Roni says Mikel-Arieli. But Churchill’s request — that the Jews be Mikel-Arieli from both colonial records and the The British had, in fact, been planning for the treated as refugees and not criminals — was ef- memoirs, letters and oral histories of the de- refugees’ arrival almost from the moment they fectively ignored. tainees, as well as the testimonies of local Mau- set sail from Bratislava. In October 1940, the The Cabinet also raised concerns when Lloyd ritians. Colonial Secretary, George Lloyd, requested the raised the prospect of deporting the refugees to “It’s very much a marginalized story in Israel,” governor of Mauritius to accommodate 4,000 the British colony of Trinidad in the Caribbean. Mikel-Arieli told The Times of Israel from Wash- Jewish refugees he believed were heading for Mauritius, unlike Trinidad, was not on America’s ington, D.C., where she has been conducting her Palestine. In some respects, Lloyd’s attitude was doorstep and was considered a rather more dis- research on the refugees. “Not a lot of people unsurprising: just a year before, the British gov- creet location to lock up refugees. know about it. When I talked to friends, my ernment’s White Paper had set strict limits on the But, as the British planned the deportation, mother and father, and grandmother, they had number of Jewish migrants who would be al- the Haganah readied to stop them. Refugees never heard about it. I was born and raised in Is- lowed into Palestine. from the Milos and Pacific had already been rael, I’ve always been very much interested in But enforcement of the quota wasn’t his only transferred to another ship, the Patria, which, it the history of my country, and I am a Holocaust concern. The refugees, Lloyd warned the Mauri- was planned, would deport all 3,500 Jews to researcher, but I didn’t hear about this until I went tius governor, should be held in a camp, behind Mauritius. to South Africa for my PhD research in 2014.” barbed wire and kept under constant guard. As the Atlantic neared haifa, the Haganah de- The refugees who were deported to Mauritius “The problem of illegal immigration into Pales- cided to attempt to scuttle the Patria by setting were part of a larger group of 3,500 Jews who tine which has caused a good deal of trouble in off explosives on board. Although it had at- left Bratislava, the capital of the pro-Nazi Slovak the past, has once more become acute. […] All tempted to pass word to the refugees already Republic, on September 5, 1940, aboard two these immigrants now come from enemy or aboard the Patria that they should jump from the ships: the Uranus and helios. A week later, the enemy occupied countries. We have no check ship at a designated time, the attempted sabo- refugees arrived at Tulcea, Romania, where they whatever over them,” the Colonial Office sug- tage went horribly wrong. Some 260 refugees, were transferred onto three ships: the Pacific, gested in a confidential telegram in November and a number of British officers, died in the ex- Milos and Atlantic. The group — which included 1940 which Mikel-Arieli has uncovered. plosion. Jews from , Prague, Brno, Berlin, Munich The telegram, she believes, provides “a win- “I think the perception was that we have to and Danzig — was highly diverse. Most of the dow into the British Mandate authorities’ percep- stop the deportation at any cost,” says Mikel- Viennese men had been rounded up and sent to tion of the Jewish refugees not merely as illegal Arieli. Dachau after ; their release had immigrants but as a possible threat.” The explosion on board the Patria did have been conditional on their leaving Europe imme- The commander of British military forces in an impact, however. In compliance with interna- diately. the Middle East similarly warned that it was un- tional law, the British decided to allow those But escape from the Nazis came at a high likely that the Nazis would not attempt to plant refugees who had survived the blast — some price. agents among the refugees. Such fears were not 1,700 in total — to remain in Palestine. “It was a physically and mentally hard jour- confined to Palestine: in June 1940, as the dan- The Atlantic passengers were not so lucky, ney,” says Mikel-Arieli. “It was very traumatic.” Al- ger of a German invasion loomed large, the however. While they were initially taken with their though conditions were poor on all three ships, British government had ordered the temporary (Continued on page 12) September/october 2020 - tishri/cheshvan 5781 mArtYrdom & rESiStAncE Page 11 nAziS boAStEd About Six million HolocAuSt VictimS: but it wAS A JEw wHo firSt citEd tHAt figurE n January 21, 1944, about a year Pages of Testimony were collected by Yad It turns out that two days after arriving in Palestine, and a half before the end of World Vashem? According to the remembrance center, when the Holocaust was still raging on European War II, a dramatic item was pub- the number was etched in people’s conscious- soil, Unger had difficult and painful things to say Olished on the front page of haaretz. ness because of a statement by Adolf Eichmann, in the presence of the country’s Zionist leadership. Under the headline “Six million Jewish victims,” who served as an “expert” on Jewish affairs in the “Polish Jewry is extinct and no longer exists. it brought unusual testimony for the time about Nazi regime. In August 1944 he boasted about it Polish soil is a sacred grave of Polish and Euro- the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust. to his colleagues, estimating the number of Jews pean Jewry. I could have brought you a sacred “Six million — that’s the calculation made by two murdered in the camps at four million, with two gift: a clod of earth from Polish soil suffused with young men in a meeting with members of their million others murdered by other methods. This the blood of a nation, which has died a martyr’s party organizations in Palestine,” the report said. testimony was revealed at the , death,” was how Unger began. Later he men- “With pencil in hand they counted the number held in Germany immediately after the war. tioned the specific number, noting that other re- of victims in each country and reached an aston- Rappel, who refuses to accept facts without ports say that the number of murdered Jews was ishing number — six million Jews were murdered checking their source, looked into it and found a “only” two million. and killed and died in Nazi-occupied countries in different answer. It turns out that Eichmann was “In early April 1943, on the clandestine radio, death camps, concentration camps, labor camps we heard about the outcry of Rabbi Stephen and the various ghettos,” the article said. Wise [one of the leaders of U.S. Jewry] about Despite its importance, the piece was pub- two million Jews who were exterminated in lished in a marginal spot on the page, between Poland. We heard and were surprised: Didn’t the other items and adjacent to congratulatory mes- world know as yet that the number of the nation’s sages and an ad for a hotel. dead has already reached six million?” he said. The item was discovered last year by histo- Several hours after his first speech, Unger rian Joel Rappel of Bar-Ilan University’s Institute also spoke at the convention of hakibbutz of Holocaust Research. Rappel embarked on a hameuhad kibbutz movement, which convened pioneering archival journey in an attempt to dis- at Kibbutz Givat Brenner. There he cried out that cover the first time that someone used the num- “Six million martyrs are gone.” Two days later, his ber six million in regard to the Jewish victims of words made it to the front page of haaretz. the Holocaust, “the horrifying and familiar num- es, a year and a half before the end ber that has long since become an icon,” he said. of World War II — and before hun- “Like every Israeli who grew up in this country, I dreds of thousands of Hungarian knew from a young age that the number six mil- YJews were murdered — it was a Jew- lion is always mentioned in connection to the ex- ish Zionist and not a Nazi officer who mentioned termination of Jews in the Holocaust,” says the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust, Rappel, 73, who lives in Yavne. After reading which later became a symbol. hundreds of books and articles about the Holo- But his words did not make much of an im- caust, and even perusing many documents that pression. Rappel’s father, who knew Unger per- have never been published as part of his work sonally, told his son how Unger “went from one as the director of the Elie Wiesel Archive at synagogue to another, mounted the dais, with Boston University, Rappel realized that despite The front page of Haaretz from January 21, 1944. The “Six and without permission, and cried out on behalf million” article is in the left column, above the announcements the research controversy regarding the precise in outlined boxes. of the Jews who still remained alive in Europe.” number of victims, “in our consciousness the In most of them, unfortunately, they didn’t want number remains six million.” preceded by a Jewish Holocaust survivor, who to hear his words and “threw him out of the syn- The website of the Yad Vashem states that early in 1944 reported the number six million. agogue — literally and physically,” says Rappel. “all the serious research confirms that the num- The man’s name, Eliezer Unger, is not familiar to How did Unger know about the outcome of the ber of victims ranges between five and six mil- the general public. Unger was a prominent ac- Holocaust in real time, before the killing had lion.” Various studies cited by Yad Vashem tivist in the Hashomer Hadati religious Zionist ended? “At the time the number six million was the indicate different numbers based on population youth movement in Poland. At the height of the accepted number of European Jews,” says Rap- censuses from before and after the war, and on war, after the , he pel. He found reinforcement for his claim in other Nazi documents containing data about expul- crossed the border to Slovakia and then through newspapers, where they warned of the fate of “six sions and extermination. Hungary on his way to Palestine. When he left million Jews,” even after Unger had spoken. In the Yad Vashem database there are about Europe he vowed “to shock the entire world, all About 15 years later, during Eichmann’s trial, 6.5 million listings of victims, but they include of humanity and our brothers the Children of Is- chief prosecutor Gideon Hausner said that “In double entries — people who appear on more rael in particular.” the consciousness of the nation the number six than one list. According to Yad Vashem’s esti- A few months ago, Rappel found a formative million has become sanctified.” But he added: mates, once the double listings are removed, the document connected to Unger in the Central “It’s not so simple to prove that. We did not use database contains about 4.8 million names. The Zionist Archives in Jerusalem. As he puts it, it was this number in any official document, but it be- rest of the names have yet to be discovered, and “a single document that brought about a major came sanctified.” Now, thanks to Rappel, histor- may never be known. change in direction in the research.” It is the min- ical research have added another layer for Yet the question remained: Who was the first utes of a meeting, under the headline “A state- understanding the context for the number. to mention the number six million, even before the ment by Eliezer Unger at a meeting of all the historical studies were conducted and before the pioneering organizations, on January 19, 1944.” BY oFER ADERET, haaretz Page 12 mArtYrdom & rESiStAncE September/october 2020 - tishri/cheshvan 5781 from PAlEStinE to JAil in mAuritiuS (Continued from page 10) tative. Over time, a degree of trust was built be- The refugees’ arrival was “a very unusual fellow refugees to Atlit, 10 days later, on Decem- tween the detainees and the commanders of the event for this small island,” says Mikel-Arieli, ber 5, the British carried out their threat to deport camp and local authorities. This reflected both adding that they were “received with open arms.” them. They had been warned the previous the refugees’ cooperative attitude and the au- Back in Palestine, however, Jewish institu- evening to be packed and ready to leave the fol- thorities’ realization that there were no enemy tions ignored telegrams from the detainees ask- lowing morning. agents in the detainees’ ranks. ing them to intervene on their behalf. When The refugees decided not to go without a Thus in 1942, conditions were significantly re- Moshe Sharett (then Shertok), the head of the fight: They refused to pack and many did not laxed, with some of the detainees permitted to political department at the Jewish Agency, was dress, believing that the British soldiers would be work outside the camp and separated husbands questioned by the refugees’ families at public embarrassed by naked women refusing to leave and wives able to meet for a couple of hours meetings, his response was that while the de- the detention center. The authorities were not de- each week. The refugees developed a rich cul- tainees were imprisoned, they were at least safe. terred, though, and the refugees, many of them tural, political and social life. They established “Of course, the refugees in Mauritius were still undressed, were taken to the ships which workshops, a Zionist association, schools and safer than those still in Europe,” says Mikel- waited to deport them to Mauritius. two synagogues. Arieli. “That’s a fact and something that the de- “It was a very violent deportation and a lot of During the last year of their detention, the au- tainees themselves [acknowledged].… Mauritius the refugees resisted,” says Mikel-Arieli. thorities permitted groups of refugees to leave was not Dachau and it was not Auschwitz. It was HArSH conditionS the prison and vacation at a summer camp on something else.” Nonetheless, she continues, it the island. ignores the fact that the refugees were detained n Mauritius itself, the ground had been pre- The refugees were, more- pared. Detainees at the Central Prison of over, not without friends and Beau Bassin were removed to free up space supporters. South Africa’s Ifor the refugees. When they arrived, the men Jewish community estab- were separated from the women and children, who lished a special committee, were taken to a newly installed camp adjoining the sent supplies, including reli- prison. Meanwhile, new regulations were passed gious items and books, and to prevent the refugees from challenging their de- bought products made by the tention in the local courts and barring local people refugees in their workshops. from directly contacting them. An attempt by the South The first 18 months of the refugees’ time in African Jewish Board of Mauritius were particularly harsh. They could not Deputies to send a delega- leave the camp and there was little by way of tion in January 1941 to visit family life. Indeed, their detention, combined with the prison was rebuffed by the authorities’ insistence that the refugees the British authorities. At- would never be allowed to enter Palestine, tempts to negotiate the proved devastating for some. Although un- refugees’ release were simi- A group of men praying at one of the synagogues set up in the prison in Beau Bassin. recorded on any official documents, a number of larly unsuccessful. The de- refugees died by suicide. In total, 128 refugees tainees, the British insisted, were illegal for nearly five years. did not survive their time on Mauritius, and are immigrants interned for committing a crime. As the war drew to a close, on February 21, buried at the St. Martin Jewish cemetery on the The refugees also later testified to the help 1945, the governor of Mauritius informed the de- island. One particularly tragic case concerned an they received from the local Mauritian population. tainees’ leadership that the British authorities artist, Fritz Haendel, who hanged himself in his Made aware of their imminent arrival, local people had decided to allow the refugees to enter Pales- cell; his body was discovered by his wife when rented boats, waved at the dockside and lined the tine. Six months later, the refugees left the island. she came to tell him that she had just been told roads to welcome the refugees. They also col- Most took up the offer to go to Palestine, al- by the camp’s doctor that she was pregnant. lected donations and clothes for the detainees. though some went to the US and Canada or re- At the outset of the detention, the British di- When conditions were relaxed and refugee artists turned to Europe. vided the refugees into groups according to their staged an exhibition of their works, local people nationality and asked them to elect a represen- purchased some of their artwork. BY RoBERT PhIlPoT, The Times of Israel AuScHwitz muSEum findS Six-YEAr-old Victim’S nAmE inScribEd in SHoES n October 4, 1944, Ida Steinberg since his wife and son were murdered. Last one, Amos is wearing a kippa, the traditional and her six-year-old son Amos ar- week, his family received unexpected news Jewish skullcap. In another, the father cradles his rived at Auschwitz. They had come when the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum reported son with an affectionate gaze. In the third picture, Oto the extermination camp in Nazi- that it had discovered the name of Amos Stein- the whole family is present, with Amos holding a occupied Poland on a rail transport from There- berg, Yehuda’s son, inscribed inside the shoe of doll. sienstadt, the concentration camp in a victim that had been removed from exhibition Amos would have turned 82 this year. His Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. for preservation work in a lab. The museum said half-sister Leah, hoping that he had somehow Following the selektion — the sorting of ar- it had likely been put there by his mother. survived, searched for him for years. His father rivals at Auschwitz into those who were to be im- After the war, Yehuda married another Holo- has filled a Page of Testimony at the Yad mediately murdered and those who would be caust survivor and began raising a family with her Vashem memorial museum in Jerusalem, a form worked to death instead — both were sent to the in Prague. They moved to Israel in 1949, chang- the museum uses to document Holocaust vic- gas chambers and killed. Ludwig, Ida’s husband ing their last name to Shinan. They have two chil- tims. In the line asking the relationship with the and Amos’s father, arrived at Auschwitz on an- dren: Leah Shinan is an urban planner and victims, Yehuda wrote, “husband and father.” In other transport. He survived the camp, started a professor Avigdor Shinan is a scholar of Judaism. the line for place and cause of death: “Auschwitz, new family and moved to Israel, where he now Upon receiving the news, they opened the gas chambers.” goes by Yehuda. family photo albums to find three pictures of the Three-quarters of a century have passed family their father had before they were born. In BY oFER ADERET, haaretz September/october 2020 - tishri/cheshvan 5781 mArtYrdom & rESiStAncE Page 13 tHE confErEncE tHAt PAVEd tHE wAY to tHE murdEr of millionS wo conferences can be considered Shortly after the Anschluss, on March 22, ate human beings around our consulates in Vi- most crucial to the development of President Roosevelt invited 33 states to work out enna and other cities waiting in suspense for the Holocaust scheme. The first one a plan of aiding the political refugees of Germany what happens in Evian.” T was the Evian Conference, convened and Austria within the limits of the countries’ “ex- The Evian Conference opened on July 6, in France in July 1938 to discuss the plight of the isting legislation.” From the outset, the president 1938, and adjourned on July 15, 1938 — ten increasing numbers of Jewish refugees fleeing made it clear that the conference would not re- days of endless speeches. Here are some of the persecution by Nazi Germany. sult in “an increase or revision of US immigration comments: The second was the Wannsee Conference, a quotas,” which stood at an annual figure of • Australia: “As we have no real racial prob- one-day event that took place on January 20, 27,370 for Germany and Austria combined — ef- lem, we are not desirous of importing one.” 1942 — three and a half years later — on Her- fectively less than a drop in the bucket. Some • : “The United States has given my mann Göring’s order issued to Reinhard Hey- 3,000 Jews waited daily at the American con- country an example of caution and wisdom by its drich: “I hereby charge you with making all sulate in Vienna, in vain; more than 10,000 re- own immigration restrictions.” necessary preparations with regard to organiza- quests lay on the desk of the Australian consul, • Canada: “We will welcome agricultural work- tional and financial matters for bringing about a unanswered. In the light of the US government’s ers and none other.” complete solution of the Jewish question in the obdurate stand not to increase immigration quo- • France: Had reached its “saturation point” of German sphere of influence in Europe.” tas, numerous groups petitioned the White refugees. As head of the , Heydrich called to- House that unused quotas from any country be • South American states: Could not accept gether 15 heads of departments in Wannsee to made available for refugees of other countries. “traders and intellectuals.” outline to them the Final Solution of the Jewish Although more than half a million petitions And so on. question. What was at stake was the total elimi- nation of European Jewry, from deportation to liquidation. With the complete cooperation of the department heads, the fate of the Jewish people was resolved in a few hours and the participants could sit down to a quiet and comfortable lunch. The Evian Conference was meant to pre- clude the fateful Wannsee Conference. It was called at the unwilling initiative of US President Franklin Roosevelt shortly after the German Anschluss (Annexation) of Austria in March 1938. The march of the German troops from the border to Vienna was hailed by the delirious Austrians like a veritable victory march; they showered the German troops with flowers, em- braces and kisses, while the bells of the Vien- nese St. Stephen Cathedral pealed hymns of victory to the accompaniment of a half-crazed The English representative Lord Winterton delivering a speech at the Evian Conference in 1938. crowd drunk with happiness. By the next day, reached the White House, no favorable reply Only the Dominican Republic expressed will- March 16, the New York Times already re- was forthcoming. ingness to take in a few thousand Jews. Other- ported that the Viennese Jewish quarter, No wonder Hitler arrogantly challenged the wise, the conference was not only a total, leopoldstadt, was invaded by triumphant democratic nations in a memorable speech at unmitigated failure; it was an outspoken disaster crowds who chased the Jews out of their Konigsberg prior to the gathering in Evian: “I can by pointing out to the Nazis that by their actions homes in their elegant dress, forcing them on only hope and expect that the other world, which they were actually doing a favor to humanity. their knees to scrub the sidewalks clean with has such deep sympathy for these criminals, will They were eliminating a segment of humanity their toothbrushes. The proceedings were su- at least be generous enough to convert this sym- that nobody wanted. pervised by stormtroopers wearing swastika pathy into practical aid. We, on our part, are The German Danziger Vorposten stated tri- armbands. ready to put all these criminals at the disposal of umphantly: “We see that one likes to pity the In one fateful day, 200,000 Austrian Jews these countries, for all I care, even on luxury Jews as long as one can use this pity for wicked were caught in the jaws of the power-hungry, ships.” agitation against Germany, but that no state is Jew-hating monsters to whom nothing was wo weeks before the Evian Confer- prepared to fight the cultural disgrace of Europe sweeter than Jewish blood. Reports by the ence began, the london Times Vi- by accepting a few thousand Jews. Thus the world press show that suicides by desperate enna correspondent wrote, conference serves to justify Germany’s policy Jews increased to 200 daily. Jewish physicians T “Demoralization is pursued by con- against Jewry.” and other professionals were taken from their stant arrest of the Jewish population. No specific Evian was a direct stepping-stone to Kristall- jobs to concentration camps without allowing charge is made, but men and women, young and nacht, the Night of Broken Glass, three months them to part from their loved ones. Since events old, are taken each day and each night from their later, when throughout Germany hundreds of in Austria dominated the news, President Roo- homes or in the streets and carried off, the more synagogues and thousands of Jewish-owned sevelt and his American administration were fortunate to Austrian prisons, and the rest to stores were smashed to pieces — and to all that forced to display some humanitarian consider- Dachau…. There is a state of hopelessness and was forthcoming till the next conference of doom ation. In the light of newspaper headlines they panic.” at Wannsee and beyond, to the ultimate liquida- were incapable of claiming any longer that the Two days before the conference, Anne Mc- tion of the six million. Western world was ignorant of Nazi designs vis- Cormick wrote in the New York Times, “It is à-vis the Jews. heartbreaking to think of the queues of desper- BY ERVIN BIRNBAUM, The Jerusalem Post Page 14 mArtYrdom & rESiStAncE September/october 2020 - tishri/cheshvan 5781

tHE HollYwood mogul wHo SAVEd JEwS from HitlEr

hy would a Hollywood mogul from Germany — approximately 26,000 yearly his estate as the guarantee. But the administra- who produced films such as during the 1930s — was almost never filled. tion was determined to suppress Jewish refugee Frankenstein and Dracula be- Some 190,000 quota places from Germany (and, immigration below the quotas, and this was one W come involved in bringing Ger- later, Axis-occupied countries) sat unused during more way to do it. Secretary Hull ignored man Jewish refugees to the United States in the FDR’s 12 years in office. And in most of those Laemmle’s appeal. 1930s? years, the German quota was less than one- aemmle’s efforts were not limited to Because Carl Laemmle understood, earlier fourth filled. Jews from his hometown. He corralled and more clearly than most Americans, that Adolf One of the devices the Roosevelt administra- numerous friends and colleagues in Hitler and the Nazis were preparing to carry out tion used to obstruct immigration involved finan- LHollywood into becoming financial an all-out war against the Jews. cial guarantees. The law required a would-be guarantors for German Jewish immigrants, what- Laemmle emigrated to the United States from immigrant to find an American citizen who would ever their cities of origin. the German town of laupheim in 1884. He was pledge to financially support him in the event he “I predict right now that thousands of German the founder, in 1912, of Universal Pictures, the could not support himself. and Austrian Jews will be forced to commit sui- studio responsible for such blockbuster films as The law did not specify how much money the cide if they cannot get affidavits to come to Amer- All Quiet on the Western Front, The huncback of guarantor needed to have in the bank, nor any ica or some other foreign country,” Laemmle Notre Dame, and the aforementioned horror classics. Laemmle experienced the Nazi menace even before Adolf Hitler rose to power. The Berlin pre- miere of All Quiet on the Western Front in De- cember 1930 was violently disrupted by a Nazi mob led by future propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. They claimed the film’s account of World War I made Germany look bad. Laemmle repeatedly sought to raise the alarm about the dangers of Nazism. In January 1932 — more than a year before Hitler became chancel- lor of Germany — Laemmle outlined his fears in a letter to newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, who had published occasional columns by Hitler. “I am almost certain that Hitler’s rise to power, because of his obvious militant attitude toward the Jews, would be the signal for a general phys- ical onslaught on many thousands of defense- less Jewish men, women, and children in Germany, and possibly in Central Europe as Carl Laemmle holding an Oscar trophy in 1930. well,” Laemmle warned. other details about the guarantor. So US officials presciently warned. There were waves of sui- Soon after the Nazis came to power, a street made up those rules as they went along — which cides by Jews in Vienna after Germany annexed which had been named after Laemmle in his is what happened to Laemmle. Austria in 1938. In one case, 22 members of a hometown of laupheim was renamed Hitler Laemmle served as the financial guarantor for single family took their own lives. Street. Soon after that, Universal closed its of- more than 300 Jews, many from laupheim, to When the refugee ship St. louis, carrying fices in Germany. come to the United States. Some of them were some 900 German Jewish refugees, approached Government-sponsored anti-Semitism be- his relatives; most were not. America’s shore in June 1939, Laemmle sent a came the norm in Hitler’s Germany. German By the spring of 1938, US officials stepped in telegram to President Roosevelt, begging him to Jews looked desperately for countries that would to block Laemmle’s rescue initiative. The Ameri- intervene on their behalf. FDR didn’t respond. The admit them. But most doors were closed. can consul general in Stuttgart informed ship was forced to return to Europe and many of America’s immigration system had operated Laemmle that his guarantees would no longer be its passengers were later murdered by the Nazis. since the 1920s according to restrictive quotas. accepted. In an appeal to Secretary of State The history of America’s response to the President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his admin- Cordell Hull, Laemmle reported the reason that Holocaust is largely one of abandonment and in- istration took that harsh system and made it was given for preventing his further involvement: difference. But there were also individuals with a worse, by adding layers of bureaucracy and bur- “I am past 71 years of age and I might not live conscience, such as Carl Laemmle, who refused densome extra requirements in order to discour- much longer.” to abandon the Jews. Their efforts deserve age and disqualify potential immigrants. There was nothing in the law which specified recognition. Professor David S. Wyman called them “paper such an age limit. Moreover, the officials could walls.” have asked younger members of Laemmle’s BY RAFAEl MEDoFF, SANDY C. EINSTEIN, As a result, America’s quota for immigrants family to cosign, or had him pledge a portion of Israel hayom September/october 2020 - tishri/cheshvan 5781 mArtYrdom & rESiStAncE Page 15

referred to him as “the Jew” and told his subor- dinates to give him a bad time. Another tHE fAtE of JEwiSH Olympian, Karoly Karpate, a Hungarian wrestler, said that one day, when he was digging in tem- peratures below zero, the guards told Attila to SPorting HEroES take off his clothes and climb a tree and crow like a rooster. They sprayed him with cold water, in tHE HolocAuSt which froze, and eventually he fell off the tree. hether they were Jewish soldiers killed at Auschwitz in 1944. who fought for their country dur- Judikje “Jud” Simons (1904–1943) was a third ing World War I, or Jewish Jewish member of the 1928 Dutch women’s W Olympians who found glory for gymnastics team and an Olympic gold medalist. their country, I have often wondered how many After her Olympics career Simons married and, erroneously assumed their medals would protect with her husband, ran an orphanage in Utrecht, them in the Shoah. housing and caring for more than 80 needy chil- The fact that they had proudly risked their dren. As the Nazis rounded up Dutch Jews and lives fighting for their homeland or had achieved sent them to concentration camps, Jud and her sporting greatness was irrelevant when the husband refused to abandon the orphans who Nuremberg Laws were enforced. depended on them. The Nazis captured her and Not for the first time in writing my book, Who her family, all of whom were shipped to the So- Betrayed the Jews?, I found myself shocked by bibor extermination camp and gassed on March discovering the fate of more than 30 Jewish 3, 1943. Olympic medalists and sportsmen who had won Lilli Henoch (1899–1942) developed a pas- medals for their country, but were exterminated sion for sport, particularly track, field and team without a thought when the Nazi juggernaut sports, which was rare for a woman in the 1920s. ploughed on with the Final Solution. She was captain of the Berlin Sports Club’s Gerrit Kleerekoper (1897–1943) was the Jew- women’s handball team. In addition, she was a ish coach of the Dutch gymnastics team at the member of the club’s hockey team, which won 1928 Amsterdam games, where they won gold. the Berlin championship in 1925. In shot put and Attila Petschauer. On July 2, 1943, Gerrit Kleerekoper, along with discus, she was not only the best performer in his wife, Kaatje, and his 14-year-old daughter, Germany, but among the best in the world. In They took him back to the barracks, but he died Elisabeth, were murdered by the Nazis at the So- 1924 she also became the German long-jump a few hours later on January 20, 1943, aged 39. bibor extermination camp in Poland. Twenty-nine champion, and in 1926 she and her teammates Eddy Hamel (1902–1943) was born in New days later, his 18-year-old son, Leendert, was achieved a world record in the 4 x 100m relay York to immigrant Dutch Jewish parents, and re- murdered at Auschwitz. race. On September 5, 1942, Lilli, her brother turned to Holland as a child. He played for the Helena “Lea” Nordheim (1903–1943) was a and her 66-year-old mother were deported. She “Men from the Meer” from 1922 until 1930, ap- Dutch gymnast born in Amsterdam. She won the and her mother are believed to have been taken pearing in 125 matches and scoring eight goals gold medal with the rest of the Dutch gymnastics from the Riga ghetto and machine-gunned to as a right winger. He was the first Jewish player team at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amster- death by an Einsatzgruppen mobile killing unit to serve in Ajax’s squad, which has had only three more to this day. Local Fascist groups as- sisted in rounding up “undesirables” after Ger- many invaded the Netherlands in May 1940. Despite his American citizenship, Eddy was de- tained as a Jew in late 1942. He spent four months doing hard labor at Birkenau and was sent to the gas chambers on April 30, 1943, after a swollen mouth abscess was found during a Nazi inspection. Victor Perez (1911–1944) was a boxer who was born in 1911 in the French colony of Tunisia. In 1930, he won the French champi- onship in the flyweight class, defeating Kid Oliva from Marseille. On October 24, 1931, he won against the American, Franckie Genaro, to become the flyweight world champion and the youngest world champion in boxing history. De- spite the growing anti-Semitism in Paris he thought he was safe, but on September 21, The Olympic torch bearer runs through the stadium at the 1936 Berlin games. 1943, he was arrested and sent to Drancy. He dam. She was sent to camp Westerbork in June later the same year, along with a large number was sent to Auschwitz on Transport 60, on Oc- 1943, and shortly after was deported to Sobibor, of other Jews. They were all buried in a mass tober 10, 1943, and then put in Buna/Monowitz where she was murdered with her husband, grave in the woods outside Riga. concentration camp as a slave laborer. He was Abraham, and their 10-year-old daughter, Re- Attila Petschauer (1904–1943), another Hun- forced to participate in boxing matches for the becca, on July 2, 1943. garian, won silver in Amsterdam in 1928 and amusement of the Nazis. By 1945, Victor had Anna “Ans” Dresden-Polak (1906–1943) was gold in Los Angeles in 1932. During a routine survived 140 bouts in 15 months and won 139. also on the team. At the 1928 Olympics, about check in 1943, he realized he had left some of Perez was one of the prisoners on the death half of the Dutch women’s gymnastics team was his ID papers at home and was soon deported march that left the camp on January 18, 1945. Jewish, but only one member, Elka de Levie, sur- to the Davidovka labor camp in Ukraine. One of He died on the march on January 22, 1945, vived the Holocaust. Dresden-Polak was killed the people responsible, Kalman Cseh, a Hungar- aged 33. at Sobibor with her six-year-old daughter, Eva, ian Army colonel, was a fellow member of the on July 23, 1943. Her husband, Barend, was Hungarian delegation to the 1928 games. Cseh BY AGNES GRUNWAlD-SPIER, JNo Page 16 mArtYrdom & rESiStAncE September/october 2020 - tishri/cheshvan 5781 web site: NEW YORK, N.Y. 10110-4299 500 FIFTH AVENUE, 42nd FLOOR mArtYrdom & rESiStAncE American Society for Yad Vashem www.yadvashemusa.org

Eli zborowSki lEgAcY circlE the American Society for Yad Vashem was founded in 1981 by a group of Holocaust survivors and led by Eli zborowski, z”l, for more than thirty years. our legacy circle is named in memory of Eli zborowski, z”l, who was greatly respected for his work and accomplishments on

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retirement plan.* Stanely H. Stone by including Yad Vashem in your estate plans, you assure a Editor-in-chief future in which Holocaust remembrance and education will serve as a powerful antidote to Holocaust denial, distortion, Yefim krasnyanskiy, m.A., Editor hate and indifference.

“I did not find the world desolate when I entered it. As my fa- thers planted for me before I was born, so do I plant for those Published Bimonthly who will come after me.” by the American Society for Yad Vashem, Inc. the talmud 500 Fifth Avenue, 42nd Floor New York, NY 10110 (212) 220-4304 for further information about the Eli zborowski legacy cir- cle, please contact robert christopher morton, director of Planned giving at ASYV, who can be reached at: 212-220-4304; [email protected]

*1974-85, as Newsletter for the American *ASYV now has nearly 100 individuals and families who have joined the Federation of Jewish Fighters, Camp In- mates, and Nazi Victims zborowski legacy circle.